


Concluded

by Steena



Series: Closer 'verse [8]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Hurt, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 21:31:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17433875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steena/pseuds/Steena
Summary: It was too good to be true. And good things aren't meant to last. The last thing Barricade thought he would find on Earth was love, but he did. But love can be ripped apart. Literally.





	Concluded

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Decepticrazy for betaing! <3

They met up again in the shadows of an old power plant. Barricade was still damaged after his run in with Bumblebee but he was healing.

"Christ, ya look like shit, babe." Jazz groaned sympathetically, reaching a servo out to lightly caress his cheek with sharp talons.

"Thanks to your yellow little bastard scout." Barricade muttered.

"Aaw, don' be like that. Ya know I try ta keep them from ya." Jazz said regretfully.

"I know." Barricade admitted, leaning into the soft touch to his helm.

"Can't ya just join us? Optimus sure as pit wouldn' mind..."

They had discussed this so many times. He really wanted to be with Jazz, and the Spy said that nobody would stop them. But was he really ready to defect? Sure, the Prime did seem different. Jazz followed him, after all, and his lover was nothing if not partial to the thought of everyone having equal worth. Still, he didn't really dare to leave the Decepticons... It would make him a walking target, and he wasn't convinced that the Autobots would really protect him.

"I'll think about it." He said, evading to answer with finality. Again.

He teeked the sadness in Jazz's field, and he shared the sentiment, but there was nothing he could do. Leaning in to steal another forbidden kiss from the mech he loved with all his spark, he pushed those feelings away.

 

 

*****

 

Taking on the Prime just might've been the stupidest thing he had ever done. Twice his size and three times his mass, the mech could so easily tear him to pieces. He didn't though, and through urgent alarms flooding his HUD, the taste of energon and massive pain, he was grateful for how the sap left him online.

Barricade still skidded off the freeway in a cloud of dust, smoke and burning oil, pain overwhelming his systems. He fought the reboot as it crept up on him, darkness on the edges of his awareness, but there wasn't much he could do when his self repair claimed all his power and he slipped into stasis as his frame started to heal itself.

 

 

*****

 

 

Reboot is agony. Barricade is nowhere near fully repaired and functional. He stretches awkwardly, onlining two optics to get his bearings, groaning as everything he does hurts.

"Oh, you finally deign to join us." Someone snarks.

Barricade turns his helm, neck stiff.

_Starscream._

"My apologies for taking a Prime to the helm." Barricade grunts sarcastically, already fed up with the screechy-voiced glitch.

He doesn't really pay attention when the new leader of the Decepticons,  _for the 2.507.344th time,_ prattles on. He will probably figure it out later anyway, when his helm isn't about to burst into millions of pieces and when his frame is moveable again.

"So, Megatron is down again? What happened this time?" He grunts.

"Does it matter? The oaf is gone, and I have finally claimed my rightful place!" Starscream says haughtily, probably having described what happened already.

Barricade rolls all of his optics.

"At first I actually thought that the tiny little Lieutenant of the Prime would succeed. He had guts, I'll give him that." Starscream jabbers.

_Had?_

"He was so brave, to a point of stupidity. Even more so than the average Bot."

Barricade's spark starts to spin quicker and there is something cold and heavy in his tank, expanding slowly.

"He engaged Megatron, the fool."

Energon burns at the back of his intake, tank roiling with the need to expel its content out of sheer anxiety.  _He knows where this is leading, but he wants to refuse to understand._

"So Megatron grabbed the little pest. Pulled him apart..."

Barricade swallows queasily, trying to keep the half processed energon down.  _Oh, Primus, don't let it be true..._

"You should've seen it, it was one of the most interesting things Megatron has ever done. Energon and fluids were spraying in all directions..."

He wants to scream, wants to wail like a wounded animal of this wretched planet, crying it's way through the throes of a drawn out, painful death, but he can't. Instead, the Saleen is forced to sit there, staring emptily into thin air to make it seem like it doesn't matter, to make it seem like he doesn't care that the Autobot is gone.  _The love of his functioning, found on a gritty road on this wretched mud-ball and lost again all too soon, in a spray of pain and fluids, loss and agony._

Megatron is gone too but that does nothing to ease Barricade's pain.  _The death of the tyrant won't bring his lover back._

Starscream keeps talking, but Barricade just can't hear him, doesn't have the wherewithal to process what's being said.

_Jazz is gone. The Spy is deactivated. He will never see those face-plates again, never hear that deep voice murmuring in his audials. No more caresses of sharp talons against sensitive protoform. Never again will he sneak away to spend the night wrapped in his lover's arms._

"...so that's the latest plan." Starscream wraps up the speech Barricade has not been listening to.

"Yeah, that sounds good." He manages to force out around the lump in his throat, voice sounding thick.

Barricade can see the odd stare Starscream is giving him as he forces himself to get up, in spite of the sorry state of his frame.

_Would Jazz still be alive if he had defected? If he had given all his intel to the Prime, would the love of his life still be here with him?_

The Saleen staggers out of the dilapidated building where Starscream has them cooped up, hard pressed to keep moving with the amount of damage to his frame.

_And if Jazz still hadn't made it, would he at least have gotten a last night to hold the Saboteur? To spend hours with Jazz in his arms, mapping out his frame and etching the scent of him into his memory?_

He falls back onto his aft, unable to stand for even a second longer, and doubles over to finally give in to the urge to purge his tank. Half processed energon tastes like acid and burns the back of his intake, but he doesn't really care, hardly even notices.

_What if he could've saved Jazz somehow? If he had been there... What if he could've prevented this in some way by defecting? Jazz is gone and it might be his fault. Probably is his fault._

He purges again, letting the contents of his tank spew down to land in the dry sand between his legs, the dusty ground absorbing it with a hissing sound as it burns the soil. He stares at the quickly drying stain, not seeing it. He can't show any weakness, has to make everyone believe that nothing has happened.

_But Jazz is gone and his spark has shriveled up and dried out behind his chest-plates. He covers his face with his arms and lets out a howl of despair, screaming out his loneliness and sorrow._

_His Jazz is gone. There's nothing he can do to bring the Spy back._

Laughter echoes through his processor, and he can see that mischievous smirk before his optics. The sweet face Jazz makes,  _made_ , when they were making love and Barricade hit  _that_  spot...

Barricade startles awake, stretched out on the ground just outside their makeshift base.  _Alone, like he will be forever, because Jazz is dead._  The Saleen suddenly understands why some mechs drink themselves into oblivion, because he is craving a drink in a way he has never craved anything before.

Still damaged, he staggers back inside, looking for high grade. The jug he finds is half empty, but it's better than nothing, so he grabs it, punching through it with his talon to down it all in one go.  _If he dies of poisoning, at least he might get to see Jazz._

 

 

*****

 

 

**1000 years later**

 

With Starscream at the rudder they won easily.  _Not that Barricade cared anymore._

He stares listlessly out over the barren plains in front of him. The Earth is theirs and they have been reaping the spoils ruthlessly. There's not much left. The green grass that used to cover the ground from where he's standing to the horizon is long dried up and dead. The sun is scorching the dusty ground and racing down the seemingly endless road is nowhere near as appealing as it was when he first got to Earth. The forest that used to cover the mountains he knows tower beyond the horizon is dead too, stumps slowly being eroded by sun and sand storms. The roads are not fit to be used anymore, the humans who're still alive are all contained in the work camps, and most of the mechs who inhabit this planet now don't care much for maintaining roads so far out in the middle of nowhere. Barricade sighs. Going across the mountains to reach the shores on the far side doesn't seem that appealing.

_Nothing is appealing anymore._

He pulls up a memory file of chasing Jazz down this road. It isn't that long ago, at least not to a Cybertronian, but it feels like eons since he heard that familiar engine revving wildly, felt that caress of Jazz's excited field.

_They ended the chase with wresting, and as soon as Jazz pinned him, Barricade opened his panels and let Jazz slide into him. Their coupling was frantic, but afterwards, they stretched out in the grass, looking as the sky gradually darkened with the setting of the sun. When the moon came up, they made love again._

The Saleen sinks to his knees with a low keen of sorrow, hiding his face in his servos.  _Why can't he stop tormenting himself with watching memories like this?_ The pained sound turns into a wail of despair and for the first time in a very long time he starts crying, finally alone to be able to let it all out without attracting attention from his fellow Cons.

The empty space in his chest pulses painfully, and he wraps his arms around himself, trying to keep his chest from exploding from the dark, cold morass twisting inside him.

And still he opens another of those bittersweet memories that bring him so much agony.  _It's the only thing he has left of Jazz._

 

 

*****

 

 

**10.000 years later**

 

Barricade watches dispassionately as Ironhide is dragged off for yet another pointless punishment. The Bot didn't really try to be defiant. He's just reached the limits of what he could do on the measly rations of sub-par fuel he'd getting. Ironhide isn't even struggling against it any more, isn't arguing that it's unfair.  _Even though it is unfair._  The Bot looks like slag after all these years of hard work and abuse.

"I'll deal with him." Barricade raises his voice.

The other Decepticons stare at him, because he hasn't taken on the task of punishing the slaves before.

"What? Is the fabled Interrogator stepping out of retirement after all this time?" Starscream mocks him slyly. 

Barricade shrugs. "I'm getting bored."

"By all means, go ahead." Starscream dismisses the entire business.

The other Cons glare at the Mustang as he grabs the chains, but he doesn't care. He may have lost his will to fight a very long time ago but his reputation lingers. They won't dare give him any trouble.

He drags Ironhide to one of the interrogation rooms. They aren't used for interrogations any more. These rooms are used when punishment isn't a public affair but are more of a method to pass time for the Decepticon doling out abuse than it is for teaching a mech a lesson. The former Weapons specialist is pushed into the room and trips over, landing in a graceless heap on the floor. He glares at the smaller Decepticon, icy optics dim with exhaustion.

"Couldn't refrain any longer?" The Autobot growls. 

Barricade snorts bitterly and shakes his helm. He pulls a cube of energon from his subspace and holds it out to the Autobot. Ironhide eyes it suspiciously but he's licking his lips in anticipation, optics brightening with want.

"Just be grateful I decided to join the party. I figure you wouldn't last much longer without someone giving you a break. Go ahead, it isn't poisoned."

"What is it to you? Maybe allowing me to offline would be the real mercy?" Ironhide asks, still grabbing the cube to drink greedily. He moans with pleasure at the taste.

"Jazz wouldn't want that for you." Barricade says quietly.

Ironhide studies him, and Barricade fights back the sob that wants to escape when he thinks of his long lost lover.

"You really loved him, didn't you?" Ironhide asks.

"I still do." Barricade whispers, voice breaking.

_He always will._


End file.
